No. 2 Stanford uses big second half for win

STANFORD, Calif.(AP) -- Tara VanDerveer can't recall a start this
poor in more than two decades coaching at Stanford. Thanks to a
huge second half, her Cardinal kept several winning streaks
intact.

Kayla Pedersen had 23 points and seven rebounds and No. 2
Stanford fought back after trailing at halftime for the first
time all season, beating Arizona State 71-48 on Thursday night
to extend its home winning streak at Maples Pavilion to 39
games.

"It was not a thing of beauty," VanDerveer said.

Rosalyn Gold-Onwude knocked down three 3-pointers on the way to
a career-high 19 points and Jayne Appel added 12 points and 10
rebounds as the Cardinal (18-1, 8-0 Pac-10) won their ninth
straight game since losing at top-ranked Connecticut on Dec. 23.
They also beat Arizona State for the eighth straight time and
12th in 13 meetings since Jan. 7, 2005. The Sun Devils' last
victory in the rivalry was a 62-59 win on Feb. 16, 2006.

"We started as poorly as we have started any game I can honestly
remember ever coaching," VanDerveer said. "We were just not
understanding what Arizona State was going to do. They came out
and were very aggressive. We were totally discombobulated
offensively. We just had to make a couple adjustments and run
some different things. Obviously the second half was a totally
different story."

Tenaya Watson scored all 12 of her points in the first half for
Arizona State (12-7, 4-4), which had its four-game winning
streak snapped. The Sun Devils had been on a roll after losing
three in a row and five of six.

But they haven't had much success at Maples, where Stanford
improved to 28-1 all-time against Arizona State. The Sun Devils'
lone win here came on March 3, 1984.

After trailing by 14 in the first half, Stanford outscored the
Sun Devils 35-5 spanning halftime and held them to one field
goal during that stretch. Arizona State missed its first five
shots of the second half and frustrated coach Charli Turner
Thorne was whistled for a technical with 12:45 remaining.

"Ah, if games were only 20 minutes," Turner Thorne said. "I
thought we got that lead and we started playing a little bit
soft. ... We got rattled. Our poise is still not where we want
it to be being a really young team."

The Cardinal overcame early rebounding trouble for a 40-31 edge
on the boards.

Watson scored seven straight during a 10-2 spurt that put the
Sun Devils ahead 27-13 with 6:13 left in the first half and
Arizona State led 29-25 at halftime with a 22-14 advantage on
the boards. But the Cardinal used a 12-2 run to end the half,
getting six of those points on free throws.

"The last five minutes of the first half really helped us going
into the locker room," Pedersen said. "We did a good job closing
the gap."

The Sun Devils couldn't sustain the level of play they exhibited
in the first half, when Stanford struggled to get into its
offense and regularly faced a man-to-man full-court press.
Arizona State shot 5 for 22 over the final 20 minutes.

"Our goal was to set the tone at Maples because we hadn't been
doing that post-Christmas," Gold-Onwude said. "It was a moment
when everybody collectively looked at each other in the eye,
we're down (14), one stop at a time, one offensive chance at a
time. Once you get one play going and one stop going, we had
total confidence in our ability to pull off the win."

Sensational Stanford sophomore Nnemkadi Ogwumike finished with
eight points and seven rebounds after her career-best 30-point,
23-rebound performance in last Saturday's 100-80 road rout of
Oregon. She went to the bench with her third foul in the opening
minute of the second half Thursday.

Before tipoff, VanDerveer walked to the other bench to greet
Thorne, the former Stanford player, with a hug. During
Stanford's decades of dominance under 24th-year coach
VanDerveer, Arizona State has often been a nemesis for the
Cardinal.

This was an important win for Stanford as it kicked off a
stretch with four straight conference home games - believed to
be a first for the program. The Cardinal, who have reached
back-to-back Final Fours and are picked to win their 10th
straight Pac-10 regular-season title, are looking to establish
some momentum heading into the final month of the conference
schedule.

Stanford endured two scoring droughts of three minutes in the
first half and fell behind 17-8 midway through the first half,
getting 10 shots to the Sun Devils' 20 early.

Guard Melanie Murphy didn't dress for Stanford because of a sore
back. She also has been dealing with further swelling in her
troublesome right knee and was limited to only three minutes
total in the team's trip last weekend to Oregon State and
Oregon.

Stanford has asked fans to wear red for Saturday's game against
Arizona to show support for the devastation in Haiti following
the 7.0 earthquake that hit the Caribbean nation Jan. 12.